I’m sure whoever thought up #QuoteYourTeacher was intending to get tweets like “You have a test tomorrow.” As lame as this may sound to the average student, I took the hashtag trend as an opportunity to voice a real problem at school – the completely biased standpoint of many teachers. The classroom, for many students, resembles an intellectual war zone. Conservative students often face verbal abuse and personal attacks by teachers who don’t agree with their politics. But teachers know everything, right?

This insight comes from none other than a government teacher. Yes, nothing motivates students to learn more than a teacher saying the subject he teaches doesn’t even matter. Some teachers let their opinions trump facts. They will only teach what fits in their political agenda. So that pretty much limits lessons to “Bush’s Fault 101” and global warming. School ought to be a place where students can safely develop their own opinions. This, however, is not possible when students across the country are being force-fed propaganda from the far left. Just look at this homework given to a middle school class.
If that’s not indoctrination, I don’t know what is. Students will never be able to develop their own ideas about politics as long as their personal beliefs are under attack.

My teacher, knowing about my involvement in the Tea Party, called these people “elitists” and accused them of not caring about the poor. I was left speechless. Arguing with a teacher is viewed as disrespectful. How can students defend themselves in a classroom without getting in trouble? Maybe the better question is, why should they have to even worry about defending themselves? Teachers should encourage students to develop independent opinions – regardless of their own political beliefs. If a student is interested in the conservative movement, teachers should praise them for even caring about politics. Maybe teachers today could take a lesson from those in the past. Back when teachers cared more about students than they did about being politically correct. Back when a classroom was for learning, not attacks. Back when a teacher’s primary job was to aid and inspire, not accuse and berate. Like these teachers:

#QuoteYourTeacher “If you don’t become a writer, you’ll be wasting a God-given talent and your life.” I didn’t write . . . & she was right.

Comments

So I guess parents have absolutely zero influence then? You know what i learned from some of my teachers? That God sent AIDS to punish gay people, that condoms are completely ineffective, and women should always be submissive.

There are going to be super conservative teachers and super liberal teachers, and it really isn’t that difficult to speak your mind in class. I certainly did, and I never got in trouble.

Parents can and should have influence. However, the fact is that parents have less and less influence. The reason for that is twofold – first, more and more parents are being forced to use the public school system as free child care. Whether it is a single parent home or both parents work, more and more families find themselves taking advantage of before and after school programs and school-supplied breakfasts and snacks. Kids, if they’re lucky, eat one meal at home. If they’re lucky they eat that one meal with one parent. And if they’re really lucky they eat that one meal with one parent and they do so away from a television.

The other half of the problem is a bit more subversive – the public school system is being designed to take away parental influence. Schools are doing little things like banning lunches from home and forcing children to eat school lunches. They are offering free breakfast, knowing that parents who work will want to take advantage. They offer free after school programs for the same reason. Slowly the after school program becomes a mandatory class. And the influence of the teachers is expanded.

You talk about the influence of parents – and I agree that it is of the utmost importance. But how much bad propaganda can parents be expected to undo if the time they spend with their children is generally limited to one meal a day and the teachers have them for 8-12 hours?

The thing is, it’s not as though parents don’t have other options. I have friends who are teachers, and you would be surprised at both how little influence they have, with parents complaining to schools about either their kid receiving a bad grade, or not liking the homework, etc, or the parents who are virtually nonexistent and who could care less. And then they have to act like the parents to these kids who are pretty much neglected by their parents, and who also tend to fail and get held back.

But your comment is really a whole other argument in and of itself.

And regarding teachers being liberal, it really depends on where you live.